Top 10 Social Media Practices

The quarter is coming to a close with only 1 day left of school for me until Finals begin next week. This is not only just the last quarter of school but it's the last quarter of my Bachelors degree. I do have an Internship this summer counting towards my degree but otherwise I am done! It's been a long road with plenty of hills, bumps and turns but I've reached the finish line and it feels great to move on to the next chapter of my life.

To close out my social media class here is a list of the Top 10 Social Media Practices.

1. Collaboration
 - This may seem like such a broad and generic term but it really is the heart of of social media. Without the willing attitude of collaboration from people social media simply wouldn't exist. It's important to keep this in mind moving forward in case we ever start to wonder off the road.

2. Participation
 - Is similar to collaboration in that it is centered on the involvement of people. It differs in that collaboration emphasizes on the building blocks of the foundation. Participation is the next step in the process that demands others to communicate, (provide input, friend, email, chat etc) and share information.

3. Community
 - The social media communities can be separate from in-person communities but they can also be branches of in-person communities. Social media and the Internet in general encourages sub-cultures and communities. This is useful for public and private organizations, agencies, individuals, and groups.

4. Networking
 - Allows for individuals, groups, and organizations to build connections with others that may be useful to them in the future. Social media networking provides a platform for people to connect from all over the world to build a better future whether it's for them personally or for a larger cause.

5. Innovation
 - Social media and innovation provides a level playing field. It's a chance for the "average" or "typical" person to be heard, seen, and recognized on a mass level. It stimulates new and different ideas to rise to the surface in a much quicker manner.

6. Transparency
 - There was once a day when privacy was the way. Today, is not that day. Privacy is now synonymous with having something to hide which in turn will lead to being unethical. Social media demands transparency not only from the client but also the consumer. Once again it provides a more level playing field and is a source for open communication. People continue to expect transparency as a must.

7. Branding
 - People associates branding with products and organizations. Social media enables branding of the individual. People can build themselves into a product. This allows for people to stand out from others and became wanted, needed, and demanded by the public. You can brand yourself however you like and you can brand yourself in more than one way to more than one target audience.

8. Self-Education
 - You may find yourself saying what's different between this and how it was before the days of social media. Sure, it's similar but now it's more accessible, user friendly, and diverse. Today people have the ability to learn how to become a chef right in their own home. They can train to be a lawyer, pick up a new skill or hobby all from their very own home. Most importantly, they can do all of these things and connect and share with others to keep the education train moving.

9. Wiki's
 - We all use wiki's in one form or another rather regularly whether we know it or not. Wiki's can be a great starting point when seeking out information. They can also be great for training purposes, group work, and sharing information. Wikipedia is a great example of a wiki and Google documents is another. They are rather different formats but provide similar opportunities for people to input and extract information.

10. Blogs
 - Being that this is a blog it only seemed right that I mention blogs. Blogs have become a staple of social media and a expected source for information on the Internet. Blogs are great for niche communities and groups while also being a tool used in branding, networking, self-education, transparency, innovation, community, participation, and collaboration. While gosh, I just named the entire Top 10 List. Blogs are an essential tool when it comes to social media and allows for you to connect social media practices on many levels. They can be vital for an individual to build themselves into a transparent brand and they can do the same for organizations.

Augmented Reality

Since there is a high chance that I will be associating myself with Yelp in the coming months I figured why don't I talk about the Yelp app. I'm actually one of the few people left in the U.S. who doesn't have a smart phone because I'm a rather broke college student but everything I've read, viewed, and have heard about the Yelp app is pretty cool.

In 2009 they rather secretly added a feature to their app called augmented reality (AR). It was secretive because Yelp was the first American company to have this feature on their app through I-Tunes and I-Phones. It was also secretive because they didn't talk about it much. If you were on the Yelp app and you happened to shake your phone 3 times then you would have an option to use AR. The phone would use the camera feature and where ever you pointed your phone it gave you a live version of what was going on. Then names of businesses in the direction you were pointing your phone would overlap on the screen. Allowing you tap on a business and then go to their business page on Yelp.

Since then they have added AR GPS and have worked out the bugs. They are continuing to improve this feature on the app and this is allowing them to set the path of innovation. Additionally, the Yelp app is free and is easy to use. Yelpers, as they like to call it can write reviews, chat with other Yelpers and friends, and suggest specific delights are specific bars and restaurants. Yelp isn't only for foodies though, it's for all local businesses from home repair, tanning salons, barbershops, apparel, bookstores and more. Yelp is a site based on participation and community. Yelp empowers the common people and demands that businesses strive to be the best organization that they can be.
Here is a picture of the AR in action on the Yelp app.

Second Life? But I'm Not Dead Yet...

Recently in my social media management class we watched a video by Rhonda Lowry who speaks about the possibilities and opportunities through Second Life. Some organizations like CNN have jumped on to the Second Life bandwagon while most organizations are yet to see the benefit. Perhaps organizations can profit from such a site but they don't see that profit even equalizing the additional time that would have to be put towards such a project. Rhonda Lowry argues against that view.

Everyone knows that we are moving more and more into a world at least similar to Second Life. If point A was year 2000 then 2012 is maybe point D. Second Life is more like M, meaning that it is such a large leap that most people just can't jump that far ahead. The possibilities are making more and more things reachable but change still takes time.

Some of the positives is that it promotes participation and collaboration. It allows for the most humanistic interactions of people from hundreds and thousands of miles away from one another. Conversations, meetings, and events and be pre-planned and post dated improving time management. It's an additional networking extension and it may even be an untapped market. At the same time many organizations feel that allocating many of their resources to an unproven-imaginative world is too great a gamble. I also feel that it is too great a gamble, at least right now.

Shuffle To The Finish Line

With less than a month left of school I'm starting to ask myself why I took so many classes that require so much work. This quarter I signed up for 21 credits / 5 class. 1 classes is already done with, which is nice but I still have so much work to do. Add that onto everything else that is going on with life and it makes for 1 hectic last month of college.

Yesterday, I officially moved out of my apartment as I sub-letted it. That means I'm now sleeping on my friends carpeted basement floor for a total of 24 days. I tossed and turned a lot more than I normally do last night. Hopefully, I'll just get used to it. When I was 19 and transitioning from my first apartment to college I moved in with a friend and his family for 6 months. I slept on their carpeted basement floor that entire time so this has brought back a few memories.

My friend Andrew is coming in town this weekend from Chicago. That means more partying this weekend. In reality, I'm looking forward to not drinking much for a few weeks. This past Saturday I attempted an Athens Shuffle. We called it "The Sammy Shuffle" after my friends dog. All went well until we all got trashed around "The Pigskin". We did pretty good considering we started at the Oak Room. I also had a 22oz. beer from Buffalo Wild Wings and 2 beers at Grinders since the server accidentally gave me a beer for free. Or maybe it was my good looks that got that beer for free :)
Either way, that night did me in and then Sunday night I got food poisoning from some really old shrimp I ate in my fridge. My stomach is still recovering several days later.
I did design the "The Sammy Shuffle" logo for my shirt though.
This is what I call, made by hand.

I can be a competitive person occasionally and my Social Media Management class team was putting together a viral video for our final project. We settled on doing a food eating competition for local food shops in town. I was going to compete against the other 2 guys on my team but because of my crazy weekend of alcohol and food poisoning my stomach just wouldn't allow me to do so. Instead, I got to watch the two of them compete.
Fluff Bakery, GoodFellas Pizza, Bagel Street Deli, Wings Over Athens, Big Mamma's, and Obetty's all donated food for our competition. Much thanks to all of them for helping out college students on a college budget.
Check out our Athens Local Food Challenge.
All views & comments appreciated!!!!!

Howard Rheingold is an advocate for the open source Internet movement. He discusses cooperation and collaboration relating it back to the start of mankind. Basically, he references how people from different communities had to cooperate with one another despite differences. Modern man doesn't know exactly why differing cultures chose to work out their differences and ultimately work together to create an improved solution, but we do know that they did do so.

Howard then compares that with the open source Internet movement today. In order for humans to continuously progress and move forward we must continually overcome barriers to reach a common goal. Here is Howard Rheingold elaborating in his eye-popping orange suit.

I'm definitely no expert on open-sourcing but I feel as if it still has some glitches to work out before it becomes uncontrollably popular like that of a Justin Beiber or The Kardashians. The positives are that it does work on the basis of collaboration and participation. People enjoy being involved in the process and open-sourcing means that's it's free for its users. On the other hand, open-sourcing doesn't allow for ownership or standardization.


I'm not the most computer savvy person so I don't like the idea of always having to adjust to a new format, new tools and locating items that are now in different places because the open-sourcing has changed once again. I also enjoy having ownership of what I use. That may be a bit of a pet-peeve but it is what it is.


With all that said, I see the Internet adapting more open-sourcing moving forward. I didn't even know that Mozilla Firefox was an open source site until a few days ago. Most people probably don't know which sites are open sourced and which are not. Additionally, I'd argue that most people probably don't even care. That just being because most people don't get into the technical aspects of the Internet. As long as their Facebook and email work people tend to be content.


I'm not buying into yet, but I will more than likely buy into it the more popular it gets. I will buy into it just because I will be forced to do so. To stay current and even ahead of the curve it's key to be aware of where things are heading.